


Hurricane

by easternepiphany



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/pseuds/easternepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s always had terrible timing and together, theirs is even worse. But she’s older and (somewhat) wiser now, and she realizes that some things maybe just aren’t meant to be. (Post 405)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurricane

The second time she falls in love with him she’s kneeling on a leather couch and she belongs to someone else. He puts his scars on display—all of them, even one she’d seen a million times but never asked about—and she takes them, she puts them inside herself, mixes them with her own. There were always a few pieces missing but now the puzzle is complete and it’s not a pretty picture. It’s not just hair gel and snark and a voice that could charm any girl out of her pants. It’s messy and it’s scary and it’s raw. It’s a bleeding boy, it’s a drafts folder full of text messages, it’s a box shuffled from apartment to apartment.

He drives her home that night and her car stays in the condo complex’s parking lot. She thinks it’s because he doesn’t want to be alone, but even now, even after all that, he’s not going to tell her. So she slides into the passenger seat and accepts his thank you as the most important bit of gratitude she’ll ever receive.

He pulls up to her apartment and puts the car in park, lets it idle. She turns to look at him and has the sudden urge to cry. They’ve been here a thousand times but this is the first time she’s ever really seen him. “Do you want a drink?” she asks, trying to remember what her voice used to sound like, the nonchalant tone, the way she used to talk to him before.

“You know what?” he says as he stretches his arms and runs his palms down the length of his thighs. “I really, really do.”

She leads him inside and once the door is closed behind them she stops and turns around. “Just—” she begins and throws her arms around his neck, pulling him down in a tight embrace. She hugs him close to her, sighing into his collarbone.

His hands come up around her back and he squeezes her just as tightly, and it’s the first time they’ve ever hugged for real. This is somehow more intimate than any other moment they’ve ever shared. He exhales slowly, deflates against her, lets her carry some of his weight.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers into his shirt.

He doesn’t reply and she doesn’t expect him to. But after a minute he pulls away and smiles softly and brushes a strand of hair out of her face. She returns his smile but tears catch in her throat again and she turns away and heads toward the kitchen. “I have scotch,” she offers.

“No,” he says. “Anything else.”

She opens the freezer and pulls out a bottle of vodka with a flourish. “My old standby.” She pours two glasses and doesn’t even bother with juice or soda. He’s sitting on the couch and she plops down next to him, handing him his glass.

He clinks it against hers. “To Thanksgiving,” he says dryly.

“To Thanksgiving,” she echoes. The vodka hits her tongue and slides down into her stomach, warm and welcome. She props her feet up on the coffee table, shoes and all, and throws her head back against the cushion.

“What do I do now?” he asks as if to himself. She takes another sip of vodka. “I don’t want to be that guy.”

“You’re not,” she says, turning to face him. “He doesn’t have the guts to do what you did.”

“Why did he do that to me? Why couldn’t I just let him go when he left?”

She lays a hand on his knee. “Because you have a big heart. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have enough room in it for all of us.”

He laughs a little and stares at her hand. “Worked out really well for me, didn’t it?”

“You coulda done worse,” she shrugs. “We love you just fine.”

“ _We_ ,” he repeats.

She feels like she’s getting into dangerous territory. She thinks of Troy at Shirley’s house, the disappointed look he gave her when she said she wasn’t going with them. She remembers the glance he threw in Jeff’s direction and she wonders how she got to be such an awful person. Troy’s too good for her. He always has been.

She takes back her hand and tucks it underneath her leg.

“You are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met in my life,” he says. “But I am thankful for you, especially today.”

She swallows thickly and smiles. She lets his words sink in for a moment. This is probably a one-time deal, just for today, and it reminds her that she’s spent almost every holiday with Jeff Winger since the day she met him.

“I’m thankful for you, too,” she says carefully. “All of you. Troy. The cat.”

“Britta, remind me why you’re not spending today with Troy.”

“Don’t,” she says sharply. “Please.”

“Sorry.”

She downs the rest of her drink and gets up for more on shaky legs. She brings the bottle back to the couch and refills both their glasses. They drink in silence and she bites her tongue to keep from saying something she shouldn’t. Love triangles are too cliché, and somehow she’s been in one with him from almost the beginning. Vaughn, Annie, Troy. It’s exhausting. She wonders if it’s all William Winger’s fault, if this whole thing can be traced back to his leaving. But she can’t give him too much credit; her own awful father deserves some as well. Men, she thinks, are generally idiots. Even the one sitting next to her. Especially the one sitting next to her.

The vodka spreads to her toes and she shrugs her jacket off and pushes her sleeves up, suddenly too hot. “Why does it always come down to you?” she asks. “I was doing fine. And then you have to stand there and say those things and I’m not fine anymore.”

“Yeah, because this whole day was for _your_ benefit.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s—nevermind.”

“No, tell me.”

“This is the first time in my entire life that I’ve been in a real, stable, healthy relationship. And one day with you and I…”

“You what?”

“I have a strong urge to sleep with you, okay?” she yells, exasperated. She grabs the bottle off the table and takes a swig, not even bothering with the glass.

He sits there for a moment, expressionless. Then he reaches over and takes the bottle from her. “I don’t think you should drink any more.”

She buries her head in her hands. “Forget I said that, will you?” she asks, voice muffled.

“I’ll file it away,” he concedes. “Troy is my friend, after all.”

It’s been a long time since the last time. She’s always had terrible timing and together, theirs is even worse. But she’s older and (somewhat) wiser now, and she realizes that some things maybe just aren’t meant to be.

“Can we take a time-out for like five minutes? Because I need to do something and I don’t need you to give me shit for it later,” she says.

He looks wary but nods. She pulls her knees up to her chest and lets the tears fill her eyes. And it feels _good_ , because Britta Perry never cries but sometimes you need to. So she pushes down her instincts to stop and just lets it happen: her shoulders shake and her makeup runs and she cries because she wants to go back in time and tell that little boy that one day there’s going to be six people who care about him so much they get mad at him for wanting to graduate from college early. She cries because William Winger is a _dick_ and his son became more than he ever will. She cries for herself, for loving someone like Jeff Winger and loving him at all the wrong times. She cries for Troy because he is the best boyfriend she could ever ask to have and he doesn’t deserve to be stuck with someone like her.

He sits there and watches, quiet, but he doesn’t move to comfort her. She doesn’t want it, not really, needs a few minutes to just be, and when her sobs start to subside he leaves the room and comes back with a box of tissues. She blows her nose, wipes her eyes, and that’s that.

“Okay,” she says.

“Time-in?” he asks.

“One more thing,” she says. “I’m _sorry_. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to pity me.”

“But I don’t. I don’t want you to have suffered like that because you’re my best friend. I want to be able to protect you from that stuff.”

“You can’t protect me from things that happened twenty years ago,” he says gently.

“I know,” she says. She blows her nose again. “We can time-in now.”

He pours them each another glass of vodka. “Can I crash on your couch?”

It’s probably the worst idea she’s ever heard. But she can’t let him drive with so much vodka in his system and she can’t let him be alone tonight of all nights. So she nods and when she’s done drinking she gets him blankets and a pillow and makes up the couch for him. He unbuttons his shirt and takes off his shoes and stands in her living room in jeans and a wife beater and suddenly she’s had way too much vodka for this.

Troy texts her goodnight, says that he hopes her Thanksgiving was good and that everything worked out. She replies that it was surely something and she’ll call him tomorrow. She swallows the lump in her throat and it settles in her stomach, a knot the size of Texas.

“Thanks again,” he says as he takes off his watch.

“Anytime,” she says. She’s never going to be able to sleep with him in the next room. “Goodnight.”

She starts to walk away but he grabs her wrist and pulls her back. She stumbles a bit but he’s hugging her again and without her boots on she barely comes up to his chest. He strokes the ends of her hair and she closes her eyes and feels so old and so tired because loving him is the most exhausting thing she’ll ever do. He kisses the top of her head so softly she thinks she might be imagining it.

“Goodnight,” he says as he lets her go.

She lies in bed all night and doesn’t sleep.


End file.
